Mathew Barzal recently estimated that it takes five or six games to fully recover after the sort of injury he dealt with in early March.
So, here are Barzal’s numbers since playing those first seven games after returning to the lineup: seven games, two goals, six assists and a spot on the second line that has helped propel the Islanders to the best hockey they’ve played all year.
Suffice to say, Barzal feels fine.
“Going down for two weeks on an ankle injury, it’s different than upper body,” Barzal said Thursday night. “I can’t really do anything with my legs, lost a little bit of muscle and endurance.”
For a player such as Barzal, who makes his living on his edges, skating around opposing defenders, that would seem to be a big problem. But not 24 hours after he said that, Barzal was skating circles around the Rangers, tallying a goal and an assist — notching his 300th career point in the process — in a dominant 3-0 Islanders victory at Madison Square Garden.
“I think again, it just comes down to chemistry with our line and like I said, it’s been a bit of a blender this year just with guys injured and so many different situations,” he said after the game. “We’ve had some just solid games with our line and I think you see it with everybody.”
This is true — Barzal noted Oliver Wahlstrom’s forechecking following Friday’s game — and a bit ironic. For much of the year, the working assumption was that Barzal and Anders Lee needed to find a right winger who could complement them the same way Jordan Eberle did. Turns out, the Islanders started playing their best hockey of the season when Barzal’s injury forced Lee to play on a line without him, and forced Barzal to come back with Wahlstrom and Zach Parise on either side of him.
Asked on Friday whether it was jarring at first to play without Lee — the duo being a constant in recent years — Barzal said no, then answered not in terms of himself, but in terms of what fit Lee best.
“With Brock [Nelson] and [Anthony Beauvillier] playing that give-and-go hockey, he’s able to get netfront and win battles down low for them,” Barzal said. “That’s really the bread and butter to his game.”
The framing there is telling.
“The pieces all fall in different ways,” Islanders coach Barry Trotz said before the game. “Barzy was out and we did well and so he understood just cause you come back … maybe we found a new formula, that’s all. He understands that.”
Barzal hasn’t adjusted his game much with new wingers next to him, and that has suited him just fine. The Islanders will take no solace from how late in the season they’ve found a working order to their forward lines, but they have at least found it.